Craftsman, Jan. 16. No. 237.
Complains of the hardship that the authors of the Craftsman lye under; that a certain gentleman makes use of his authority to restrain their pens, while he employs others to throw about scandal at random; and others are suffer’d to call the authors of the Craftsman, traytors and villains!
Makes some reflections on the London Journal Jan. 9. which had took to pieces his Hague Letter, concerning the report of a negotiation at Vienna.
Mr Osborne in the London Journal having exposed a paradox from the Craftsman, that the ministry are never right; when they do what the Craftsmen count wrong: and yet wrong, when they do what the Craftsmen count right; the Craftsman observes, that ’tis allow’d that an accommodation with the Emperor is a right measure, but attended with fatal consequences, and almost insuperable difficulties; because such measures might be resented by other courts as an infraction of treaties, which Mr. Osborne says, were only occasional and temporal.
The Craftsman supposes these alliances to be such, but then asks, Will our allies understand ’em in the same sense! If not, what may be the consequences?
As to what the Craftsman had granted, that the fulness of time was come to desert one ally, and to Mr. Osborne’s reasons for such desertion, he replies by demanding, Whether it was not equally reasonable long ago?
Osborne had ask’d——if upon the non-execution of this treaty, occasion’d by the different views of the allies, another court should grow stubborn, what must we do? This the Craftsman answers by another question, that is, Whether the different views of the allies do not proceed from their different interests?
Craftsman, Jan. 23. No. 238.
From the Minutes of Mr. Oldcastle.
This paper continues remarks on Q. Elizabeth’s reign; and is a long Encomium on her management of treaties with foreign powers, which she always conducted in such a manner as was best suited to the good of her people and the honour and dignity of the nation. Her Ministry went wisely and steadily on to their own great purposes of preserving the peace of Europe, and the trade and prosperity of the Kingdom. (See Free Brit. p. 8, 326.)